Embrace (Original Club Mix) - EDX
Progressive House from one of the best producers in the genre. Still, I wouldn't be able to tell any of his tracks apart, but I'd know that they're his.
In order to get nerds to dance like this, you need to bust out some SERIOUS tuneage. So I present to you a short list of fantastic, classic House jams that are sure to get every single person dancing. Besides, you already know and love ALL of these songs, you just might not know it yet. And if it's not clear, all these tracks are Golden Bananas, and none of them are by any means new.
So I'm back in business. I've got a brand new macbook with my old hard drive inside. I hope this doesn't slow down the posts from the others, but I have a pretty solid feeling that it will. Anyways, its good to be back.
The Swedes are really on top of House music. I haven't really been following blogs recently, but I feel like that's still a safe assumption to make. None of these tracks are new, but they are all perfect for your rave crowd. Oh, and Dirty South counts as Swedish, so does Laidback Luke sometimes. And all of these tracks are big Golden Bananas.
Gypsy (Laidback Luke Remix) - Steve Angello
Still one of my favorite rave moment of all time was seeing Laidback Luke drop this one before I listened to House music (we mostly went to see Steve Aoki, I'm sure you can see how we've changed our ways).
What a boss, keep it comin kid. You've got potential, you've got dreams. I'll make it happen. Your boy J here to keep things ridiculous.
So here i am again. WHAT UP PLAYAS. we got some like vocal tracks for you guys. This is like you listen to these vocal and you just gotta like sing along. There ain't no way that this ain't gonna happen. Cheesy and disgusting, you gotta love it. Put on some of these tracks when you're with your lady friend and shit's gonna go down regardless of what she wanted before it came on. Holla.
Ballin as always.
-J
Some Deadmau5 and Kaskade, because he's got killer vocals.
Somebody requested a best drops post, so in order to prepare for M's post on that, I decided to do a best buildups post. You gotta remember that a lot of the best drops also have best buildups, so I tried not to overlap. I realize this list doesn't include everything, but it really would be hard to think of all of those. These are some that came to mind in no particular order, these are also in no way new.
So it's like, damn that girl's fine, and I wanna dance with her but I like needs somethin to gets it started. I gots to put on those phat beats you know what i'm s ayin. It's like sometimes you walkin into the room and turnin heads just ain't enough, you gotta make everybdy start feelin it. Just like carry a cd with some of these beats on you at all times to throw shit down.
-J
Wake up by Les Petits Pilous, The buildup in song is epic as hell, but for some reason I was never satisfied with the drop, but I still like the song.
Zdaright by Digitalism I would put magnets and their remix of technologic in the same boat.
Don't Think About Me (Miles Dyson Remix) by Lazy Rich, This song is all about the second buildup. Me and my boy tony were sitting in his room and we heard this and just were like damn this shit's hot. This gets it started.
I'm sorry for posting our own shit, but 1. as we really were very influenced by the soulwax remix above and 2. I'm very proud of this buildup, in fact it's basically the whole purpose of the song.
We (aka Bastille) have started a project with our buddies over at The New Confusion called Let Them Eat Mixtapes, where we will run a mix series on their site. The site just recently launched and I highly advise all of you to go check it out, it's a great place for interesting perspectives, art, and ESPECIALLY Hip-hop (definitely where I go to learn about new artists that don't always subscribe to four-on-the-floor beats). However, in wanting to expand their musical boundaries, they decided to collaborate with us in this mixtape project. While we will definitely be putting our own mixes up there often, I'm asking friends (and all you readers) to help by sending us mixtapes that you want to be included. We're open to all genres, but please nothing longer than an hour, and send to apeswithbarrels@gmail.com. The first mixtape posted is our own Dub Sack mix, which is all Dubstep (you may have copped it when it was posted here a few weeks back). You can check out the series HERE, and I look forward to hearing your submissions.
I had the pleasure of DJing a rooftop party in Brooklyn last night, and although the party was a complete bust due to things like rain, super drunk hipsters, and especially douchey cops that threatened to take away my equipment if I didn't tell them who's party it was, I did meet a bunch of other really cool DJs, including one who works on some of the best Bootlegs that have been coming out recently. His name is Nunzi, and if you've been reading such blogs as ElectroStation or Temple Of House, you've probably already heard some of these. I even heard one of these dropped at Love Festival by none other than D.O.N.S. and it happened to be the highlight of his set (wrote a review of that set HERE). Anyways, enjoy these bootlegs:
But you gotta give it to the dude, Axwell is one hell of a House producer. He's basically the king of Sweden, and that's really saying a lot considering the other Swedes. Also funny fact, we met this random ass female French DJ at LAX and she was wearing that exact same shirt, the picture just made me think of that.
Welcome to part two of Avicii, there's not much to say that I didn't say in the first post below. I made sure to pick a lot of great ones for this post, I kept many of my favorites for this one, so don't think I just posted my favorites in the first post. I intended to get this up yesterday, but then a song idea came in my head and cut the post short, but it's here now.
So at the bottom of this post I'm posting three Zip files: My whole collection, the first post compiled and this second post compiled.
Enjoy:
I said in the last post there was a better remix of Dirty South by this guy so here it is, it's been all over the house blogs over the past few weeks:
-J
*ALL LINKS REMOVED
We Are Feat. Rudy (Avicii Remix) by Dirty South, I really enjoy the original but Avicii beat it. Taking the best from the original and adding his own great line. So what you get is the best of dirty south + Avicii (who's amost always great)= Amazing song.
Strutnut (Original Mix) by Avicii, I think Ryu got more press then this but I do like this song better from the EP. However I will say that:
Ryu (Original Mix) by Avicii, is a Great Song. Very progressive. In the words of M, "Keep it clean and safe."
Electric Masturbation (Original Mix) by Avicii, as Jumpman hasn't posted in a long time, I'm assuming this song is referring to him. Sorry dude it just had to happen.
Almost (Original Mix) by Avicii, Great.
Sphere (Original Mix) by Avicii
Time to get Ill by Avicii, electro electro electro, I like how Avicii puts out some electro stuff, shows diversity.
Play that Next Episode (Original Mix) Avicii, it's 12 minutes long, crazy.
Full Avicii Collection Zipped.
First Post Zipped.
Second Post Zippped
If you wanna go digging through to take what you'd like: Here you go my Collection, I like to pretend and trick myself sometimes that I wouldn't go through such a thing if I saw it on a blog, but I'll admit I'm a huge loser who would take that time to do it.
Avicii is a producer from Sweden who has, at least in my book (pretty sure in M's Book too), come as a close second to our current favorite Afrojack. Avicii is a producer who is relatively hard to define in genre. But if I'm honest he's definitely more of a progressive guy, but he does have his tech house side to him.
Sorry it's been a while since I posted, I explained it was the whole Mammoth thing, and though I'm still in Mammoth, I managed to get shit uploaded.
I have so many songs by Avicii that I'm splitting this into Two days and two posts. My Collection will be posted tomorrow, for today I'll post a good 7-8 favorites.
I hope you enjoy this amazing producer as much as I have been.
Hey and SURPRISE, they're all 320. EDIT, M'S A DICK AND THERE'S ONE SONG THAT'S 192 (but that will be in my collection).
-J
*ALL LINKS REMOVED
Sometimes I Feel (Avicii Remix) by Dim Chris & Sebastien Drums feat. Polina My Favorite Song by Avicii, all you have to do is listen to it, and you'll understand why.
D10 (Avicii vs Philgood's Vicious Remix) by Dirty South, Not my favorite Remix of Dirty South that Avicii has done (I will post that one tomorrow), but it's damn good, plus I do love the original quite a bit.
Music Around The World feat. Teacha (Avicii Remix) by Austin Leeds, Nick Terranova Classic, more techy but you definitely feel the prog.
One Step Forward (Original Mix) by Avicii, What the fuck? Where did this come from? Yet catchy in some ways. But still sounds very elementary compared to everything else. ELECTRO
So Excited (Original Mix) by Avicii So cheesy. Typical Prog Chords. This is actually as far as I can tell a different version of his song Excited, but this one is definitely better. Say you want to see me again.
I think I should post this here because well, I like this better then both excited and So excited. In fact it's just an incredible song:
Excited (Sebastien Bennet Remix) by Avicii, Look forward to this. Such a good line.
Malo (Original Mix) by Avicii Malo Malo Malo Malo Malo Malo, such a good loop.
Muja (Original Mix) by Avicii, Sounds like TV Rock, so that's always a plus with me.
Don't worry though, I saved most of my favorites for tomorrow. This is just a taste, plus tomorrow you get the collection.
So J's parents went out of town and are going to be out of town for some time, therefore we've just been living at his house for the past few days. Most time has been spent shooting zombies (no Danl, not Nazi Zombies, but rather the Parasitic Zombies of Resident Evil 5, but we do believe that we are now adequately prepared for the zombie apocalypse as well). We've also been working on some original material which will hopefully be finished soon. However, this also means that the blogging has been cast aside for a bit, but we will try to continue posting some tracks. Therefore, I bring you a few great tracks by Kaskade, who was definitely one of the best at EDC round 2 (I will post a review at some point...).
-M
Walking On A Dream (Kaskade Remix) - Empire Of The Sun Now there are a bunch of remixes of this song, way too many, but this one if by far the best and shouldn't even be grouped with the others. Extremely beautiful, my favorite song at the moment. Play this shit on repeat.
This is going to be my last of two batchs before going back to doing posts about specific artists because I just don't ever feel as satisfied from doing batch posts and it doesn't push for me to look for new music as much. M should be doing the EDC day 2 post relatively soon.
Havn't posted in a while, I've been working on songs, playing resident evil 4, and sleeping. But I should be doing at least 2 more posts in the very near future, so be ready.
I first got introduced to TV Rock by their productions with Dirty South (their skitzo dancer remix). TV Rock are in no way new, and have always had great stuff I've loved. So I decided to do a huge search and find more stuff by them. TV Rock are definitely some of the best electro house producers out there, with a very similar style to Dirty South, but not as hardcore as Dirty South, much calmer, yet his songs still kill. If anybody doesn't know who TV Rock are (and that seems like such a doubtful thing), it's worth getting all of this stuff, it's incredible.
So I've uploaded all 25 TV Rock songs I have. There are obviously a bunch I don't have (M or Jumpman if you have more please add em to the post), but my collection is pretty good. But I'm obviously not gonna post all 25 songs right now, instead I'll post a few and give the link to the mediafire link where you can get the rest if you so choose.
I Want Your Soul (Tv Rock Remix) by Armand Van Helden, the fake blood remix is incredible, and I will say that it beats this remix, but this one is still pretty great. I mostly posted this one because of the fake blood remix we all know.
Can't Sleep (Marcus Schossow pres. 1985 Club Mix) - Adrian Lux So pretty, reminds of Fred Falke. Cheers to Swehouse. In fact, general cheers to Swehouse since I'm pretty sure there are more tracks in this post that I got form them. They fucking rule. Everyone should check that shit daily.
Been gone a while, had some car troubles...haha I was disappointed when I saw this picture and that it wasn't some cover to a porn movie. Though I'm pretty sure these is just a drum sample package. I really like how the picture is reflected at the bottom of the frame, really cool picture. A+ But I'm not here to talk about that. The fact is we all know Dirty South as someone who's destroying the Prog-House scene. It seems like an obvious thing to post a long list of Dirty South songs, but we were late to the game with Dirty South. There's tons of his material which I just don't have and am really curious to hear, you can see a big list of them on Discogs Here. I am posting some tracks which were hard to find (relatively, I'm sorry if you have them) along with some old favorites. When I first heard about dirty south, when we saw him play after Laidback Luke (I think), I was impressed by 2-3 songs but not really very impressed. Always wondered why Laidback Luke isn't bigger then dirty south. And I still wonder that, but it makes so much more sense now why I think Dirty South still has a spot which Laidback Luke hasn't obtained (I might be wrong about that, but it was Dirty South playing at Ultra and not Laidback Luke).
In the Dark (Dirty South Remix) by Tiesto Though I know the other half of Bastille knows it, here is his remix of Tiesto which has risen to be one of my new favorites by him, and actually the first track I ever got by him according to my date modified. I guess I just never gave it a great listen. I especially like the end: The Things You Say (Dirty South Remix) by Cicada What a crazy remix. I first heard this remix at Ultra, and was in the crowd just awed at the simple yet so effective "Do you imagine, you can get away with the things you say" (I think is what is said, but whatever it doesn't really matter) with all that delay on it. What an amazing buildup, and then into a crazy drop. I would consider this a rave anthem for sure.
Alamo (Original Mix) by Dirty South Something Great about this song, definitely one of my favorites of his, its kinda minimal in a prog way. Especially compared to the Tiesto remix, but I think that's where Dirty South is his heading in a way.
Changes (Dirty South remix) by Chris Lake Another interesting song. I wouldn't be surprised if that Pussycat Dolls remix was earlier in his career and that this remix is in between. Really Cool though
Sexual Erruption (Dirty South remix) by Snoop Dog Really cool, took a while to grow on me. There are definitely parts that I like more the other parts. The beginning is not like him at all, it's interesting. Meaning I like the second half better then the first half, sounds more like him that's for sure.
Pyramid (Dirty South remix) by John Dahlback I forgot to put this up, it's not hard to find. At the end of the day, I would always play the original over this, but it's pretty good. Basically just adds chords and some background noise.
I would also get a song called minority (original mix) by Dirty South, pretty cool.
This is a long post, bare with me. It's 5 in the morning and I'm exhausted, but at this point since I'm getting up at 9, there is no point going to sleep so here is a review of Ultra (go to the site to see the lineup. Don't be fooled, the order they are in does not mean the lateness of when they played).
A simple way to describe Ultra would be: interesting. It's not as flashy and glamorous as LA raves (though of course you had your fair share of ravers with candy and all that) and you didn't have people coming up to your all the time trying to sell you pills or some other drug. While Ultra didn't have the same friedliness that you can see at LA raves, it also had less assholes just trying to fuck with you for fun or looking at you strangely. Ultra attracted a much larger crowd which really extended beyond ravers. The festival itself sort of smelled of a combination of sweat, greasy food, weed, tobacco and god knows what else. The large amount of wind, especially friday, made sure that we would smell all that. I will say that I never set foot in the Carl Cox and friends tent (though I did want to see some people in there) mostly cause of time issues and never went to the smaller stages. The heat was horrible but not unbearable as shade could be found. We ended up taking more breaks then I would have liked and for longer then I would have wanted but that's not a big deal. The key for me I've realized is to rarely takes breaks, cause once I start a break I don't want to stop, and I just get so much more energy at the stages (for example, was extremely tired saturday when we first got there, got to the stage where LA riots was playing, and immediately my energy was back).
NOTE: The videos obviously aren't great quality, it's more about listening to the audio as best as you can and listening to what he's doing.
Here are the ratings of where I would place the acts:
Swedish House Mafia: I saw their set in parts because they ended up having a two hour set (I don't know what happened to Tiga) and there were other things I wanted to see at the same time (Para One and Surkin). The beginning of their set was mediocre, nothing special to be honest. I was more impressed with Josh Wink. I went to go see Para One, came back to Swedish House Mafia maybe about an hour into their set. What a show. I mean they went from some remix of thriller (might have been louis La Roche's), into the buildup of Be, which then dropped into satisfaction, back into the buildup of be (but it worked), to drop into the laidback luke thing where he takes Show Me Love (I was dissapointed I wanted to hear Be) and calls it a rework when it's just him mashing it up with Be (Rynecologist did it first let's be honest, but as Be is Laidback's song, who cares), then into some remix of technologic, might have played soulwax Kids but I can't remember fully. They played some other stuff afterwards including let it go and open your heart, but I really couldn't name the rest. The thing that Swedish House Mafia really had, aside from the best stage in my opinion for Friday (they were in a tent which really made everything better, aside from the heat which actually got worse), were these extremely epic buildups. I won't describe what they were doing here, but what really seperated them from other Djs was also the length of these buildups and how hard they all dropped, every single one. I will add though that their use of samples from other things at the end of buildups was really fantastic, and the crowd was overwhelming. My only criticism would be that the buildups they touched were all very similar, but I didn't really care that much because of how good they were. this was Be into satisfactioN:
back into Be into show me love:
I wish I was here for this part, it's respectable for djs to play one more time if it's fucking as good as they're doing it here:
Boys Noize: What a G. I mean his stage prescence is just so cool. He just seems like a really cool, calm, and collected guy; yet still nice and ready to have fun. You can tell he loves djing as much as we love seeing him, and that he's having just as much fun and probably more fun then the crowd. Let's go for some honesty: he wasn't like Swedish House Mafia or some of the other djs who will be named after, who kept the crowd going for the whole time (or at least very large portions). I'm giving Boys Noize number 1 because he was in complete control and played one of the most impressive sets I've ever heard. While most of the djs were doing stuff in the buildups that I could identify, I found myself stumped time after time with Boys Noize about how he was doing what he was doing. I say he was in complete control because there were times when people weren't dancing and weren't cheering as much, but that doesn't mean he wasn't doing amazing stuff. People like simplicity, lots of delay on buildups, a loop brought down to a miniscule segment... Boys Noize wasn't going to do that every time, though he very well could. I also applaud him for not playing as many safe songs as I felt a lot of other djs played. Some examples of un-safe songs are Popof and other minimal (I can't remember the song name, but I can tell you it wasn't motherfucking bass and that's what brings it out of the safe zone. I also say this because this stage was almost purely electro or something related to electro) and his remix of Royksopp (which is not a banger but is still amazing). I was having a blast when he played the para one remix of my head, but nobody else seemed to share as much enthusiasm about the song as I did. But when he dropped lava lava, nothing mattered anymore; everybody was going nuts. I was surprised that nobody really went nuts when he played superfresh, but I guess that's much less popular then lava lava. From what I could tell he also played a lot of new material which was really awesome (I could tell by the sounds used and the vocoder we all know so well from arcade robot being heard in some songs I didn't know, unless he was doing that live). If it wasn't new material, then it's old material that I just don't know very well (there's quite a bit). I was kinda dissapointed that he started and ended his set with the my moon my man loop and never played the song, but that's ok. He also left that Royksopp remix on for too long. Some Tracks:
An old remix by Boys Noize that I never had and just recently found. It's bad quality and you have to be patient with it as it doesn't really drop until like halfway through the song, but when it does drop it's crazy. Dudun-Dun (Boys Noize remix) by Para One
His dj set was good but at the same time you really have to wonder how much he can do with his own stuff. It was well mixed, and sometimes he would create big buildups. He played some version of ghosts and stuff which was cool which then dropped into the original. I wish he had played slip, but oh well. He's just my number 2 becuase it's Deadmau5 and I love all of his songs, and it's so fun to see him in the mask. Interestingly, he was using 2 computers; I wonder why. EDIT: I found out that he's actually doing a live show as well as djing, so now he definitely deserves this number 2 spot. Some good ones:
Cut Copy: I was feeling like shit saturday afternoon when we got there around 4. Part of me that morning really didn't want to go to the festival, but I knew I had to. We laid around in the shade for about an hour before getting up to see the end of La Riot's 20 minute set (which was good but nothing amazing). I didn't feel like dancing: I felt like sitting down and getting out of the sun. I wasn't in a bad mood, but I wasn't super happy either. Cut Copy really helped me out. It really lifted my spirit and made me really happy, and that happiness gave me energy for the rest of the day. That's really quite an accomplishment. Gotta love it when they played that knightlife remix of so haunted and their own remix of kaiser chiefs. It was really nice to just sing along to their songs and to see actual live music in a sea of djs. Go get their albums if you don't already have em, it's worth it.
Dirty South: It's dirty down south. I can honestly say I don't remember much of his set, but god damn it blew me away. I just remember being really happy and everybody going nuts. When a set, especially a house set, is really good, it trances me out. I just kinda leave this world, start moving side to side, until the next buildup. Then I get hyped if it's a good buildup, dance more hardcore when it first drops, then back to trancing out. That's what happened with Dirty South, so I know it was good. Otherwise I would have been standing there bored. Look at that 400 in the picture, must be an old picture or sometimes before he got more famous.
I made a playlist of a long list of videos that a guy put up of dirty south:
Let's be honest, I hate the new album. But they killed it. I mean really a crazy high energy set, and even though I wasn't in the main crowd, I couldn't stop but think wow everytime something dropped. It was less about the greatness of the buildups (a lot of filters) and more about how heavy everything was which complimented the lightness of the hi pass filters. And they played a lot of their old stuff, which made me happy. They also kept the crowd at a constant state of excitement. If they were playing their new stuff, either I didn't notice it or it might mean their stuff hits much harder live (but I didn't hear vocals). I left early to go see Prodigy however. I deleted their new album off my hardrive, so for those who don't know it: The least known but really crazy MSTRKRFT song: Beautiful Fighters (MSTRKRFT remix) by Ayumi Hamasaki (she's going deaf)
Beginning of their set:
I'm sure you can all recognize the song they go into here:
5. Busy P and Josh Wink Busy P: He was great at coachella last year and he was great this year. His song choice was pretty safe in my opinion, but I still really enjoyed his set. Aside from the safe songs, he played a lot of other electro songs I liked and knew which is always nice (numanoid!). His transitions were on par and his buildups were good enough to attract a crowd and get people dancing. I mostly giving him props for not fucking things up, and his song choice was good enough to pull him the rest of the way through. When we entered the tent where he was playing, there were a good amount of people but it definitely wasn't full. By the end it was packed. Funny, while we were leaving, they put out so much fog that I couldn't see 1 foot in front of me. It's really awkward to be leaving and not be able to move because of all the smoke surrounding you and just standing there waiting for it to go away, while wondering if you should still push forward or not. Go look at a recent older post to get some Busy P: HERE
Josh Wink: The House Djs Friday really pulled through. Thank god he got a haircut, and I'm pretty sure his hair was still short on friday, cause other pictures of him are just ridiculous. He was the first guy I saw at the festival, and he got me excited for the rest of the festival. His buildups were extremely well done, most were on par with Swedish House Mafia, transitions were smooth. The only reason I put him down here is because I don't know him well enough and didn't see as much of his set as I would have liked. But he played Slip as I was leaving which made me force chase to run back in with me and if I remember correclty the Herve remix of omen. I actually don't have a single track by Josh Wink, I'll make sure to post a bunch at some point. For now be content to look at his myspace and to find tracks on hypem.
Swedish house mafia playing Josh Wink's higher state of consciousness:
Honorable mention: Surkin: Played a good set, a lot of songs I did not expect to hear at all at this festival (Momy as an example), and did some interesting things with it. But for some reason I just wasn't hugely moved. Chase thought he was terrible.
I was extremely excited to see them to say the least. I was so let down. First of all, they came on like 40 minutes late, but the main stage sucked with times like that (hence deadmau5 playing two songs on friday). They kept shouting "where are you, Miami" well where the fuck were you Prodigy. I stayed for two songs, both sucked, not many people were dancing except in the very front. We left to go get some water before Deadmau5, I wasn't going to miss a minute of deadmau5 for prodigy. I listened from afar to their set, and really it didn't improve. They must have had two to three songs left (because of how late they came on, and they would never shorten Paul Van Dyke's set) by the time we got up to go see deadmau5, and none of the ones I wanted to hear had come on (omen, invaders must die, warriors dance) They played world's on fire, but something must have been wrong with their mids because all I heard were drums and the guy shouting. No idea where the synths were. The actual song is good, but live it just wasn't. However, I will say that a lot of people really though that the prodigy did a great job. Maybe my expectations were too high, or maybe I don't know enough of their stuff, but I just didn't enjoy it. It might also have been cause I was pretty pissed that they came on so late because I wanted to see a good portion of their set before seeing deadmau5.
I only stayed for 20 minutes of his set before going back to Swedish House Mafia, and thank god I went back. Those 20 minutes were boring and even annoying. He kept teasing us with midnight swim, but didn't play it. EVERY SONG SOUNDED THE SAME. I don't know if it's because he kept using this sampled scratchy sound, but it sucked to hear it every song. And he kept using this sample of an open hi hat over all of his stuff. His bass was just too high as well. Could barely distinguish the song. But that was partially because I was in the front row and there were huge subwoofers on the floor in front of me. However, even when I moved back it still didn't sound good. I made motions to try and help him, but he didn't see me. Oh well.
I love Benny Benassi's new album Rock 'N' Rave. Too bad in the 40 minutes out of the hour he was playing, he did not play a single song from it or a single song from his first one. Benassi actually ended up playing a lot of electro, which is usually fine with me, but not in this case. I was just bored. He played a lot of songs I liked... But did he do anything? I'm not sure. I feel like an ipod would have worked well in his place, maybe a dj with the IDJ. Let's just say, there was a huge crowd for Swedish House Mafia, and they all left when Benassi came on. I also spent half the time wondering who was on stage and where the fuck Busy P was because he was supposed to go on before Benassi. Also from afar Benassi kinda looked one of the guys from swedish house, but I think that's because I think he was right next to them the whole time they played.
Mediocre:
4. The Bloody Beetroots Very mixed bag with Bloody Beetroots. And I gotta say, I think I was most excited to see them. Certain points were great, others not so much. I saw them twice, an hour set on friday and a 20 minute set on saturday. They had some good buildups, and I really liked their stage prescence as they're really into it, shouting and stuff. For most of their set on friday, I wasn't dancing much and neither were a lot of people around me. But by the end it picked up and it was really fun. Saturday's set was better, I mean they played positif. It's hard to say exactly why saturday was better, but it definitely was. But my conclusion about the bloody beetroots is that they are lazy. Though I liked saturday's set better, it made me realize how lazy they really are. They played warp three times: once on friday, and twice on saturday (once in the beginning and once in the end. The song does sound better live). More then half the songs they played saturday they had already played on friday. On friday they went from warp to cornelius. Guess what, they did it the exact same way saturday or at least in a very similar way. Where was all the Bloody beetroots I wanted to hear? Mac Mac, Butter, I love the bloody beetroots, 72 virgins remix, summer of 98...anything... I was so pumped to hear miscommunication, but saddened quite a bit when it turned out to be dimmakmmunication. They also played a really safe set, Kids (soulwax remix), wake up, diplo remix of bart bmore, raven (crookers remix) which is less safe then the original but I heard that song too many times, One More Time (the safest song of all time)...There was more but I can't remember right now. It was cool though when they played baggy bottom boys. It wasn't cool when they cut out the second half of the second buildup. However, some of the stuff which sounded like them that I didn't know and could be on the new album, sounded pretty cool. So we'll see.
Horrible video, but all I've found for now:
Most overplayed songs: 1. Kids (Soulwax Remix) by MGMT, please make it stop. It's great, it's not amazing, and the original has been overplayed. I must have heard it at least 7 times, twice at the house stage...
2. Raven by Proxy, I thought the hype about this song was over, I guess I was wrong. Even when the crookers remix was played I was just tired of it.
All the DJs had quite a few safe songs in their sets, maybe because Ultra is a huge festival, and like at a college party, people love hearing what they know, and DJs wanted to make a good impression. No matter how many times people heard that fucking kids remix, they always went nuts.
Acts I really wanted to see but didn't get to: Crystal Castles (heard they sucked from some EDIT: According to some commenter they were great) Fedde Le Grande Moby More of LA Riots Pete Tong Carl Cox Rabbit in the moon SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO: Tony and Devra were so fed up with dance music by 11 pm on saturday that they had no intention of staying to see simian. Me, most importantly without any cash, and really not in the mood to stay there alone (though if I had money I probably would have), had to leave too. :( Booka Shade (Really wanted to see, but it just didn't end up happening) Evol Intent Infected Mushrooms Kaskade
Some things I noticed about the djs:
I heard very few to no mashups.
A lot of filters out of songs.
Quick cuts from right before where a buildup would be in the song to the buildup in a new song For the loops which became smaller and smaller and smaller i'm pretty sure they were using the pioneer mixer and not the cdjs.
Fuck computers, the best djs didn't have em.
They cut in parts of really popular songs that everybody knew, but didn't actually play the song. In deadmau5's case, he cut in parts of harder better faster stronger and he did it in a really cool way, but he didn't play the song or his remix of the song, and people were dissapointed when it dropped back into hi friend for the third time (he played the version without the vocals the first time, and after the first buildup, dropped into the version with the vocals). I'm not so down with that.
Overall I'm not complaining. I really enjoyed seeing all those djs. However, I think next time I go to a festival (whether its a massive in LA or something else) I'm going to try and see more house music then electro acts, unless I really want to see that electro act.
